I’m almost at the end now, and I’m pleased to report that it’s picked back up a little bit and I enjoyed this one more than the last. It’s still not quite as good as it was when it first started out, but it’s still good enough and it’s definitely worth reading, especially if you’ve made it this far.

I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this was that you could tell that we were getting near the end game and so the stakes felt a little higher. The authors have also shown by this point that they don’t mind killing majorcharacters when it serves the story, which leaves you as the reader feeling like pretty much anything could happen.

Other than that, I’m not too sure what else I can say that I haven’t said in previous reviews. As always, the artwork is gorgeous, so big props to Takeshi Obata for that. Tsugumi Ohba does a great job with the story, too. He’s clearly a master storyteller, and it’s impressive how much he manages to convey through just dialogue and the imagebriefs that he gives to his illustrator.

If you’re thinking about reading Death Note, I’d definitely recommend picking up the Black Edition books. They’re not super expensive (I think I paid around £30 for all six of them), and they’re beautiful little artefacts in their own right. They’ll look great on your shelves, but they also look great in your hands and the quality of the print is good enough to highlight all of the details from the original comics.

The only thing that I will say is that when I first started reading the series, I didn’t know who I wanted to win because I liked both sides. Now, though, I don’t know who I want to win because I don’t really care for either side, which is probably a bad sign. I’m just not as invested in the series as I was when I first started out, and I can’t tell whether that’s because of the story or just that I’m flagging.